Jeeves comes through again
by LaCasta
Summary: FINISHED. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Super Bertie Wooster! Returning to Smallville after rescuing Lex, Bertie and Jeeves end up entangled in events. Again. Very very AU for Exile. Crossover with Wodehouse. Usual disclaimer.
1. Default Chapter

Jeeves sometimes refers to something a pal of his, William Blake said about a worm, that "Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy." Though he says the context is quite different, I suspect Blake came up with the phrase while in a situation much like the one yours truly was facing.  
  
When Aunt Dahlia suggested a cruise on her yacht, I considered it just the thing for refreshing the fibers after a wearying time in London. I'd been eluding, if that's the word I want, the designs of one Madeleine Bassett, who was determined to make a brighter, purer, more ethereal being out of your Bertie. Since her plans included the elimination of drinking, nights at the Drones, and such mild convivialities of life, and in place of all that which maketh a man's heart glad, a vegetarian diet, hot water at meals, and meditation in the early hours of the day, I was struggling with all my might to avoid this. Unfortunately, aside from the generations of Wooster chivalry that kept me from telling her to dunk her head, she has this confiding way of nestling up to one, at which point her profile becomes a distraction, and even strong men are bound to stammer things like, "Right ho, of course," and then realize later that they've agreed to join a yoga group or some such thing.  
  
Since Aunt Dahlia has an unfortunate habit of calling me a pathetic young puppy with the spine of a jellyfish and the brains of an under-educated turnip when I confide such crises to her, I rather neglected to mention that I was in flight from rampant bean cutlets and such threats to life and l.. Not only did I, not having Jeeves' brains, fail to ask whether the yacht would harbor such menaces, I suggested that Gussie Fink-Nottle, a poor old school chum who for some reason would worship even a bean cutlet that Madeleine bestowed a glance upon, accompany me. Her response was that she had planned a cruise, not a gathering of the feeble-minded, but if I must bring him along, I must.  
  
Unfortunately, she hadn't mentioned that Madeleine was on the guest list, and the Wooster reaction of gulping and stuttering at seeing her had convinced her that I was madly in love and, in general, galloping towards undying declarations of l.. Worse, she saw this as a chance to renew her efforts towards breaking the proud Wooster spirit into bean cutlet consumption.  
  
So to sum up, the cruise was not as soothing to the nerves as I had imagined, what with Madeleine telling me horrible things about eating flesh and asking me not to do it for her sake, Gussie looking like a thingummie without its whatsit, and me hiding from the whole circs as I best could.  
  
On that particular afternoon, I knew that Madeleine was watching for dolphins, or, as she put it, "our playful spirit brothers and sisters," on one side of the deck, so I clung to the other side. I was idly flicking a telescope this way and that and Jeeves swanned up with the air of a man just knowing that the Wooster fibers required another jolly martini, and not, as Madeleine would have suggested, wheat-grass juice or some such horror to the eyes and heart.  
  
"I say, Jeeves, what a jolly grand time this would be if one could enjoy it in peace."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"After all," I enlarged, beginning to grow eloquent, "The sea air is a good thing, a change from the metrop. Not that one would ever forsake the bustling city, but a pleasant change. Never let it be said that a Wooster cannot enjoy variety. Anatole's cooking remains the envy of princes. What's that thing you say about gold miners?"  
  
"Gold miners, sir?"  
  
"Yes, some snappy thing about prospectors and things being what-ho all round."  
  
"Ah, yes, sir. 'Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.' Wordsworth, sir."  
  
"Well, putting down the stuff about man being vile as just his having had too many stiff ones with the chappies, here, you could say that every prospect pleases, except for that of being forced to convert to-"  
  
Jeeves had suddenly turned his attention to an island the yacht was passing, and when a man of Jeeves' caliber turns his attention, you might well say that attention is worth turning. He turned a telescope in an expert manner, and then exclaimed, "Excuse me, sir, I must inform the pilot that there is a castaway who appears to be requesting rescue." 


	2. Jeeves and the Rescue

I nearly said, "Tush, Jeeves," based on my knowledge of the habit of desert isles, which is to be deserted, but long experience has taught me to be circumspect, if you know what that means, in contradicting him. But when he added, "I believe the gentleman is of your acquaintance," I did expound my disbelief.

However, Aunt Dahlia over-ruled me with her usual roughshod manner, making remarks comparing my intellectual abilities and capacity to recognize anything other than my next drink to that of a lump of clay, and declaring that Jeeves and self should undertake a rescue expedition in the small motorboat. "You'll keep him from drowning his fat head, won't you, Jeeves," was her tender farewell, which was probably what she'd have said to Columbus, assuming Columbus was taking Jeeves on his way to discover the jolly old Indies and that Aunt Dahlia was there to voice an opinion.

I would be deceiving my public if I said that my first emotion on recognizing the stranded mariner was something other than absolute astonishment. It was the Lex Luthor chappie I've talked about earlier, don't you know, the fabulously rich bean who lives in Smallville where extraordinary things keep happening to him and his c. of friends and family.

"What ho, Lex, old bean!"

He straightened from hacking at some vine or another that didn't appear to me to be giving offense, but you know these Americans, and looked at me as though he weren't quite sure that I wasn't another vine.

Jeeves, I must say, knew exactly the right thing to say, as if he'd somehow gotten a book on Things To Say When Encountering Lex Luthor on a Deserted Isle. Perhaps he had, since he reads like improving literature like billy-oh. "Sir, dinner will be ready in approximately thirty minutes. Would you care to come aboard for a drink and a change of clothing?"

While I wouldn't say that Lex and I are like those two chappies in the myth, seeing him tuck into a steak was a sight to fill the Wooster heart with song. With a lordly wave of the hand I had brushed aside Madeline's assurances that bean-cutlets or a few slices of cheese would restore his health and spirits far faster than any kind of steak would. "Nonsense. Cheese, yes, but cheese in its proper place, which is with a good glass of port after a full meal." The sheer cruelty of her proposal astounded me, I mean to say.

As I was changing out of the dinner garb into my night attire, I commented upon this to Jeeves, who was supervising matters. "The female of the species, how does that bit go?"

"For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Kipling, sir."

"Well, when you next see him, tell him from me that he is absolutely right."

We Woosters are always attentive to the call of duty and compassion and all that, plus I felt it would be no small relief to escape from Madeline, and so I offered myself and Jeeves' assistance in returning him to his native clime. He agreed, sort of numbly if you know what I mean, and I darkly surmised about the cause.

"Jeeves," I said, "I have no doubt in my mind that had the Luthor chappie not been distracted by the Jeeves Special you so swiftly concocted for him, that Madeline's proposal would not just have rendered him numb, but caused him to lose his reason."

"I am sure there are many things on Mr. Luthor's mind, sir."

"Well, now it's all aboard for the jolly old city of his birth and then nothing to cloud the brow or perturb the mind except whether his ties are still up-to-date and he remembered to tell them to stop delivering the milk, eh, Jeeves?"

AN: The muse for this one woke up and started kicking me in the shin again!


	3. Bertie and the Caves

Jeeves is a marvel. I mean to say, what sort of a man would be able, with just a few skillful blows of a needle, to adapt the young master's spare suit so that it perfectly fit a castaway who wasn't doing much of the feeding on honeydew in the last few weeks? Not an ordinary man, you could bet your last doubloon.

When fortune has not smiled on a pal, a Wooster does not stint in ministering to the needy. With nothing more than a passing pang, I pulled off my own latest and dearest acquisition, a pair of suede dinner shoes, and handed them to Jeeves. "Jeeves," I said, "Pass these on to the Luthor chappie, to make glad his soul."

"I fear, sir, that Mr. Luthor would find little to appreciate in them."

"Tush, tush, Jeeves, free your mind of these prejudices." I waved a breezy hand. "Even if he lives in the American Middle West, a bean like Luthor knows a good thing when he sees it." Jeeves and I usually have but a single thought when it comes to decking out the well-dressed man, but he had found my suede shoes to be a sore trial to his proud soul, despite my pointing out their many virtues as an alternative to patent leather.

"From my observations, he does indeed, sir." Jeeves gave the much-wronged footwear the kind of glance that would have made the sheriff and the black-hatted bandit in _Desperado's Days_ look as though they were heading off for a quick one and a game of darts. Disdainful, if that's the word I mean.

A friend of Jeeves once said that discretion is the better part of valor, and Jeeves took right to that phrase and passed it along on several occasions. I kept that in mind, after a quick glance at the clock told me only five minutes until the dinner gong would sound, and put them back on my own feet. "Very well, Jeeves," I said, and I meant it to sting.

* * *

You know, in all those novels where a chap comes home after the wars and finds that friends and f. have mourned him as one dead, all he has to do is come up with some cheery story of when he skinned his knee or show a scar or some such? Not so with young Luthor. Assyrians coming down on the fold have nothing on him when it comes to a good hot temper, though Aunt Agatha thwarted of her prey could still give him a run for his money. The long and the short of it was that being officially dead, he couldn't obtain conveyance from port back to the old homestead, so Jeeves and I offered a place at the front of our caravan. I felt it made up for not being able to lend him the suede shoes, at least.

Nothing stopped our fleet-footed return to Smallville, but when he saw a sporty red car outside his domicile, he turned flinty-eyed and his demeanor suggested "I would be alone." Jeeves and I, ever alert to the whims of a pal, took the hint and, wishing him a top-notcher of a day, decided to remind ourselves of the good old days of our last sojourn there.

"There have been several articles on the discovery of the Kewatche caves," Jeeves contributed to the feast of reason and flow of soul over a refreshing cup at the local tea hostlery. "I would be considerably interested in seeing them before we leave."

To each his own tastes is a Wooster motto and each man has his own pursuit of wild pleasures. Since we had time to spare, I decided that I may as well add myself to the legions of cave admirers and we set out to explore.

Just as we arrived, we heard shouting from a familiar voice, and grave replies from an unfamiliar one. Who was Jonathan Kent, honest yeoman of the soil, disagreeing with, I wondered, and so advanced on cat-like tread.


	4. Bertie in Metropolis

As Jeeves and self were walking the last few paces to the caves, there being no roads for our trusty chariot after a certain point, I stopped and held up the warning hand.

"Do you hear that, Jeeves? It sounds like Aunt Dahlia in conversation with a horse that embarked on a folding of the hands in sleep mid-race."

"It certainly sounds like an individual in some agitation, sir. I do not recognize the language."

I nodded sagely. "Just like Aunt Dahlia's when she's full of wrath and righteous i."

"Except that this voice is decidedly masculine."

"A difference, yes."

We hurried our pace to the caves and saw a strange glowing light, a bit like the one I saw after a night of conviviality at the Drones, and then inside the cave itself, saw Jonathan Kent collapsed on the floor. The voice was coming from one of the cave walls.

Jeeves hastened to render first aid while the young master took charge of the situation in the fine old Wooster tradition. "I say, what's going on here?"

The voice that had been raised in anger responded, "He was not suitable." It paused and then said, "Nor is the intelligent one. You are the only one available before the powers are exhausted."

My pride stung, I bristled. "Why does everybody think that Jeeves is exclusively the brains of the party? Of course, his brains are beyond those of mortal men, but when Glossop and his ilk, including several aunts, say that I am fit only for a home, they err."

There was another burst of language I didn't understand but in a tone that left no room for d. "You will go to Metropolis and bring my son back." I'd been looking with a bit of worry at the elder Kent, but Jeeves had him sitting upright.

"Er, your son? Because if he's another glowing light, how exactly can I-"

"My son Kal-El. Here known as Clark Kent."

"Are you sure, old bean? Because jolly old Clark struck me as being like Jeeves' old pal Lucy, 'a violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye,' not like Uncle Fred, who is always darting off to the city to raise troubles and furrow the brows of the respectable citizenry. And Clark introduced Mr. Kent here as his father."

"I am certain. Now, go. Immediately."

I stood my ground. "What about Mr. Kent? He doesn't seem in the pink of health and Woosters don't abandon their pals."

"I will restore him to full health and repair the underlying flaws in his heart that your primitive medicine could not detect."

I'd actually been ready to refuse since I didn't see why Clark should be dragged back just on an indignant say so, but this made a difference. "Right ho."

"You will need powers equivalent to his in order to bring him back."

I do keep fit, don't you know, regular swimming and ropes at the Drones, as well as fairly regular hoofing it away from irritated family and others, but a second later, I felt as though I could outrace most of the horses at the next Ascot, not just the snails in disguise that I always seem to put my money on. The elder Kent got up just then, wincing, but more like somebody who's remembering a monumental hangover after drinking one of Jeeves' concoctions rather than before, when the pain is all too real.

"Mr. Kent, perhaps you could come with us in an advisory capacity."

"Jeeves, you took the words right out of my mouth."

* * *

In the drive to Metropolis, he filled us in on the details. The most salient one, if that's the word I'm looking for, was that I had to get a ring with a red stone off his hand. Now once or twice I've had rings thrown at me, when somehow my role as friendly Cupid between two pals didn't quite work out when I was trying to explain to party one how it looked like party two wasn't as enthusiastic as before but was really still as keen as mustard, but this was a horse of a different c. Clark was going to hang onto that ring no matter what, so I'd have to use strength and guile. In a moment when the honest farmer was distracted, Jeeves whispered in my ear that guile was probably the way to go, Clark not being the first one you'd go to if you were seeking an explanation of the deepest details of Einstein, for example.

I parked outside the LuthorCorp tower, not the friendliest piece of architecture I'd seen in the world. But Clark seemed to like it since he was up on the very top floor as I could see with my perfect new eyes. Mr. Kent told me that I not only had perfect vision but that if need be I could see through things, set them on fire with my eyes, and hear things from a mile away if I needed, a power I thought restricted only to aunts and such ferocious beings, as well as being invincibly strong and fast.

I raced up the stairs finding that the speed was everything the advertisement said and more besides. Clark was looking around with a smirk that suggested a pleased Hermione Glossop, which usually bodes ill for all in her path.

"Hullo, hullo!" I stepped forth.

"Bertie Wooster? **You're **the one they sent?"

"I say, that's a new look for you." I sighed a bit. "It's clear that you don't have a Jeeves telling you that your latest pick in styles is not at all acceptable."

"Nobody tells me what to do any more. You can tell them that from me."

"Now just give me half a mo-"

He smashed a convenient desk into pieces. "Tell them that from me."

"Believe me, I know how you feel. I always have people trying to drag me out of London or throw me out of various places. But-"

"But nothing. Get out."

I've been on the receiving end of many expert gendarmes' attentions and knew what to do. I grabbed him by the collar and for just a moment, I thought that he was going to go quietly. Then he turned around and slugged me.

I was a bit surprised to find myself flying through the air but not feeling much more than a discreet maitre de's tap either when he hit me or when I landed. It went on like that for a bit, rather as though we were practicing cricket but tossing one another instead of the balls.

I landed in a pile of what was left of some furniture and noticed Jeeves out of the corner of my eye. "Remember, sir, what we discussed in the car."

"You mean, about when Gussie and Madeleine were hearts torn asunder?" I'm all in favor of thinking fondly of friends, don't you know, but this didn't seem quite the time.

"No, sir, the other topic."

I thought about that while dodging Clark instead of grappling, in case that would help cogitation. Then the light dawned.

"Right, Jeeves, it had completely slipped my mind." I turned back to Clark. "Did you know that your father had a heart condition that wasn't diagnosed? Jor-El fixed it, which is pretty handy. Do you think he'd make house calls? I forgot to ask."

"He's not my father!"

Jeeves sounded concerned. "No, another topic beyond that." I continued to dodge, since it seemed to help the mental processes. For some reason, this seemed to irritate Clark, though I thought it did make things easier on the surroundings. I looked to Jeeves to see if he could give me a clue of some sort and when my attention was momentarily distracted, Clark pushed me against a wall and grabbed me by the throat. He aimed a fist right at my face, and having gotten a lot of practice, I dodged again.

There was an extra loud noise and Clark stared at his hand. Curious, I took a look, too, and saw that the ring had broken and remembered that that was what Jeeves had meant. The poor chap, Clark, I mean, not Jeeves, looked absolutely confused and wretched for a moment, like at cat who's been left out all night in the rain, and I gave his shoulder a comforting pat.

"Mr. Kent?" Jeeves had come closer now that things were calmer. "Your father is downstairs in the car, waiting for you. He's missed you very much." Clark looked at him doubtfully for a moment and then bolted.

"You see, Jeeves, guile did triumph after all. All that dodging, you know."

"I'm sure of it, sir."

I was rather disappointed to lose the powers, because I certainly would have been able to win all sorts of bets at the Drones, all along the lines of saying "I can pick that table up with one hand and run through Picadilly Circus with it and nobody would be able to catch me," and betting on the subsequent disagreements, but then, Jeeves said that such powers could bring unwanted attention, possibly from the unscrupulous.

"I suppose you're right, Jeeves."


End file.
